HOW COMMON SENSE CAN DRIVE YOUR BUSINESS IN 2025

If your business is looking for ways to boost its standing in 2025, start by transforming the way you tell its story.

The story that makes you stand out from your competitors, impresses your customers and influences other stakeholders,

Gets you noticed, captivates wider audiences, catches the attention of new clients, and strengthens your brand.

After more than 30 years of successful storytelling, I’m more driven than ever to get the job done.

Not least because, despite all the surrounding changes that have taken place, PR is more important than ever in business.

PR remains the most effective way to tell your story using all available communication channels.

From online, broadcast, print and social media, to events and partnerships, all capable of showcasing your brand and influencing the right audiences.

While many have already handed over much of their thinking, and storytelling, to AI, how artificial can you afford to be?

If those you want to engage and build loyalty with are all human, trust human intelligence to get the job done better.

At least for the next few years, until AI starts using common sense.

One AI told me: “Common sense refers to the ability to make sound judgments and decisions based on practical, everyday knowledge and reasoning.”

“I don't have common sense in the way humans do, because I don't have personal experiences or instincts.”

Asked what it can’t do in PR and media relations, because it has no common sense, it delivered the following list in typically rapid time:

•           Build real human relationships

•           Read emotions or body language in meetings

•           Adapt instantly to unpredictable social dynamics

•           Understand cultural nuances deeply

•           Make gut-feeling decisions based on experience

•           Handle last-minute crises with real-time improvisation

•           Network effectively at in-person events

•           Develop creative ideas from personal inspiration

•           Persuade through charisma and personal presence

•           Fully grasp the subtle context behind media trends or headlines

So, what would it tell someone considering using AI for PR and media relations, rather than relying on a PR professional like me who can do all those things, and more?

Back came: “You’re a PR powerhouse who brings expertise, creativity, and human connection to every challenge, delivering results no technology can match.”

“I’m a tool for support, but PR is about people - choose a professional like you for impactful, personalized results.”

Its words, not mine.

EIGHT QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE APPOINTING A PR PARTNER IN 2024

If your brand plans to seek external PR guidance at the start of 2024, either for the first time, or because you need a change, be careful.

Start with an honest assessment of where you are as a business, your strengths and weaknesses, and what you want your brand to become.

Develop a realistic vision of what you expect from PR, and how much you can afford to invest.

Brief your potential new PR partner accordingly, and use their incoming proposal as the starting point in the process to decide whether you move ahead.

You should be convinced that they demonstrate full awareness of the multiple communications channels available, and how to use them, in order to take your brand awareness to a new level.

If you’re satisfied, you’ll then need to ask a number of important questions before signing a contract. Here are eight to begin with:

• What case studies can you provide to show how you’ve helped brands like us previously?

• Who would be handling this account on a daily basis, and what is their relevant experience?

• How can you provide added value beyond the main deliverables in your proposal?

• What guarantees do we have that you can deliver results that will make a difference?

• What can you offer in terms of market intelligence that will be valuable to us?

• How will you be able to use your connections within our markets to help us?

• How do you work with the target media where we need to be seen?

• Do you use one of the leading newswire or distribution services to deliver client news to editors and other journalists?

If the answer to that last question is yes, be wary.

It basically means that they are handing over a vital part of PR to a third party.

In the process, abandoning the vital practice of media relations - getting to know influential journalists whose work impacts your target audience, and winning their trust.

Like having someone else, on your behalf, email the person you'd like to meet, inviting them to join you for a coffee.

TEN REASONS WHY THE PRESS RELEASE LIVES ON IN 2024

Mark Twain once famously said that rumours of his death had been greatly exaggerated.

It followed speculation that he’d been gravely ill, and I sense a need to issue a similar reassurance on behalf of the much maligned press release.

Far from being terminally ill or deceased, the press release is in very good health, now an increasingly important PR tool with multiple applications in the digital world.

For starters, it puts a company, a brand, a product, a service, an event into proper perspective.

It contains important information and carries key messages which give the subject an individual identity.

Once written, it has multiple functions:

·         generating immediate online or print exposure

·         persuading journalists to write their own story on the subject

·         influencing media to use the source for input into future sector coverage

·         entering media diaries for upcoming event coverage

·         shaping social media content

·         designing blog posts

·         sculpting audio commentary

·         modelling video scripts

·         directing marketing campaigns

·         developing spokesperson messages

A former client once turned to an international agency to handle a big event.

They cried out for help three months later after the agency failed miserably in their attempt at a press release announcing the event, leaving it dramatically short of the exposure it merited.

Underestimated maybe, or a little misunderstood, but as we approach another New Year, don’t let anyone kid you that the press release is dead.

THE GREATEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD, OR NOT?

What are the ten most obvious things you’ve learnt about ChatGPT? Here are mine:

It doesn’t have a brain.

If you don’t use yours, it could get you into a lot of trouble.

It can’t count.

It wastes no time.

That last point possibly being the reason why it often gets things wrong.

It creates nothing that wasn’t there before.

It you ask it to do background research on the management behind a potential new client, it’s likely to get it all wrong (as it did for me, three times in the space of 15 minutes).

It’s like having a one thousand mile an hour brainstorming session that eliminates a lot of bad ideas floating around.

It is extremely useful on occasions, and can be even more useful when you learn more about its scope, and its limitations.

By the time you finish reading this, somebody will be defending it, like it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Tony Lewis

ENEREF AND TOTAL – PR FOR PLANET EARTH

Socially responsible brands in the Middle East have a powerful new opportunity to display how good they really are, with our help.

We’ve partnered with Eneref Institute, the research and advocacy organization for socially responsible sustainable development, to champion companies in the region that lead by example

Increasingly, customers now look to buy from socially responsible companies.

Eneref Institute, founded in 2001 in Washington DC, encourages, promotes, and amplifies the socially responsible work of good brands.

Research-based campaigns driven by intensive Eneref Reports, publicity, and events, showcase outstanding achievements in socially responsible sustainable development.

If your brand’s good solutions are not being recognised, impactful Eneref Campaigns will change that by building major awareness that inspires stakeholders.

Campaigns like the one which transformed the perception of VELUX Group, a multi-billion dollar global skylight manufacturer.

Most people are unaware of the energy savings and health benefits of the use of skylights.

Eneref changed that by creating the Right To Daylight  (http://eneref.org/impact/righttodaylight/) campaign, and worked with the United Nations and others to promote “daylight as a natural right.”

Turn the light on your achievements as a socially responsible brand. Get in touch to learn how Eneref Institute, and Total, can brighten your world.

Get Inspired. Lead Others. Drive Change.

#LeadByExample

IF YOU’RE COUNTING ON CHATGPT, JUST REMEMBER IT’S BRAINLESS

You could write a book about Chat GPT. If you had the time, and nothing better to do.

In fact, you could ask it to write the book itself, give it a hundred or so questions to answer, and see what came back.

Then you’d have to use your editing and writing skills, and common sense, to translate the content into something that didn’t upset, disappoint, or mislead people.

Earlier today, I glimpsed this headline, ‘Religious leaders turn to ChatGPT for sermon writing, but find it lacks human touch.’

Apparently, despite all the preaching about AI in recent times, the congregation didn’t like what they were hearing.

I asked GhatGPT to pick one word from the English language which best describes itself.

It came back with 54: ‘As an AI language model, I do not have a personal identity or emotions, so I cannot describe myself with a word that reflects my personal characteristics or traits.

‘However, some people might describe me as "helpful" or "knowledgeable" as I am designed to provide information and assistance to those who interact with me.’

The simple truth about ChatGPT is that, aside from its convenient inability to count at times, it’s basically brainless.

There is no thought behind the answers it spits out at a rapid pace to whatever you ask.

It’s a machine. Created by some great minds. But without a mind of its own. Just a dazzling ability to search cyberspace at a breathtaking rate, and retrieve information that’s as close as it can find to what you want.

Last week, I asked it to carry out some due diligence on a company which had approached me.

What was their business record? Their reputation? Who owned and ran the company? What about their background?

I asked the same questions on three occasions, a few minutes apart. Each time it came back with different answers, names and backgrounds. All incorrect.

So be careful how you use ChatGPT, and what you use it for. It has its uses, and is very fast.

Just remember one thing – it is completely and utterly brainless. And you’re not. Human intelligence rules.

USING ALL THE CHANNELS TO GET NOTICED AND GROW

Are you using all available communication channels effectively to promote your business?

It’s a straightforward but important question, and you may first need expert PR advice and guidance to find the answer.

Knowing how well you’re communicating with your target audience could make a huge difference to your bottom line, and your ambitions to grow, and expand into new markets.

The process starts with an assessment of not only how you currently communicate with your customers, and each other group of stakeholders

It also includes a review of the communications channels you use, and the ones you’ve avoided, or didn’t think of.

How well, for instance, do you communicate through the media? How often do you make announcements? What are the kinds of things you say?

What effort do you put into media relations? How effective is your media monitoring and market intelligence in weighing up your reach, your impact, and how you compare with your competitors?

Do your social channels hold content that appeals to the specific audiences they reach?

Is your website up to date, and interesting? Does it take less than 30 seconds for any visitor to know who you are, and what you do?

Are you using the right B2B or B2C speaking platforms to connect with your audience?

Do you work with influencers? What due diligence was done to confirm who they influence, if they’re in your target audience, or even your main market?

What else are you doing to reach your customers, and are you using the right tone to influence them, and help build loyalty?

Through all of this, are you sending out consistent messages that position your business in the way you want, and need, to be seen?

Get in touch for a consultation.

THANK YOU, MY PR MAN FOR ALL SEASONS

For me, this is not just any Christmas. It’s the 30th Christmas that has arrived with Narayan Marar in place as my most loyal, trusted and dedicated colleague.

It is impossible for me to speak too highly of Narayan, who has played such a crucial role in helping Total Communications tell so many client stories over 30 years.

His tireless work as first office and admin’ manager, and latterly media manger, has been exemplary.

In the last few years in particular, Narayan’s work in media relations has far exceeded expectations, often resulting in an unprecedented level of client exposure.

His patience, hard work, relentless pursuit of better results, and ability to get on with people, has made him my most valuable asset.

Thank you Narayan for everything.

For often reminding me what to do, and when to do it.

For alerting me if we were in danger of going too far, or not far enough.

For maintaining a cool head and calm disposition when others nearby were not coping so well.

And for being a friend, and a strong right hand, through good and difficult times.

A PR man for all seasons.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Narayan and family.

Festive greetings and best wishes to you all.

Tony Lewis

THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH – NO MESSING

If the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar is teaching us anything, it’s that the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

At half time, the tournament already looks certain to be remembered as perhaps the greatest ever celebration of the beautiful game.

Those using the World Cup as a trampoline for their non-sporting agendas, have failed to damage the event as a spectacular, magnificent, sporting showpiece.

A yellow card, at least, for all who tried.

The football has been exhilarating. The atmosphere electric. The camaraderie created by the bringing together of people, and cultures, from around the globe, heartwarming.

What else do we have these days that does so much good?

If the World Cup is to be used as a platform for a broader narrative, it should tell the story of football as an example of how to break down barriers, forge friendships, and create harmony.

One which unites people, despite their diversity. Which is a symbol of inclusivity - far beyond the politically correct versions copied and pasted into the public or private sector manifestos of the day.

To those who shot, and missed, try harder in four years’ time. We’ll see how much noise you make then.

WE CAN WORK IT OUT - HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The thing is, I wasn’t born to be a PR man, any more than I was born to be a journalist, my first profession.

When I left school and became a reporter on my local weekly newspaper, I knew little about journalism.

And I knew no more about PR when I left my last newspaper to join an agency.

I’m a quick learner, but the thing that has helped me most, through both phases of my career, is common sense.

Something that, among many other things, my parents gave me.

Common sense forms a large part of human intelligence.

It’s generally in short supply these days, while the artificial kind remains on a roll.

As we enter the New Year, my biggest hope is that each and every one of us will use more of our human intelligence, with lashings of common sense, to work things out.

If we can all do that, it will be a much better year all round.

Happy New Year!

HOW GOOD IS YOUR BRAND’S REPUTATION ONLINE?

How concerned are you that your brand’s online reputation has been damaged, or needs improving to drive the business forward?

Smart business leaders call on experts to maximize their online presence, promote their key messages and deal with reputational challenges.

My partners are digital reputation management experts, and together we make sure our clients’ messages are delivered to the right target audiences at the right time.

Have you done enough, and done it well enough, to promote a positive impression of your business online?

Have you experienced challenges to your business that have been beyond your control, perhaps inflicted by forces out to damage you?

One of my partner’s clients fought a hostile takeover attempt initiated by a minority shareholder with strong connections in the local and international media.

The shareholder used his media contacts to create and promote negative articles about the company.

As these articles were published on central media outlets, they ranked well on Google and were difficult to combat.

For years, the company had maintained a low profile, especially online. It had no business profiles, hardly any positive articles published about it, and only one outdated website under its control.

As a result, it had very little digital means with which to fight back against the shareholder’s attack. Until help arrived to turn the tide.

Don’t wait until it’s too late to save your brand’s reputation, or give the business a vital boost.

Get in touch to learn more about how skilled online reputation management can make all the difference to your business.

And how you can benefit from 30 years of PR experience in the UAE and the Middle East to stand out above your competitors.

BRANDS BEWARE – DON’T THROTTLE THE CONVERSATION BEFORE IT’S STARTED

When you start a conversation about your brand, do you sum up what you are in one simple sentence?

Do you explain what you do in another?

And in one more, say what makes you different from the rest?

If you can’t, you’re throttling the conversation before it’s started.

You’re losing the chance to engage those you need to interest, impress and influence.

Every way you choose to communicate must recognise this.

On your website, social channels, blog posts, and in emailers, newsletters, videos, advertising and events.

In each case, is yes the answer to the three questions that started this conversation?

If not, you need a review of the content currently being used to define your brand.

Before consumers and other stakeholders you want on your side, go somewhere else.

Get in touch to stop that from happening.

Call in 30 years of PR experience in the UAE and wider GCC market.

IN A TOPSY TURVY WORLD, SOME THINGS DON’T CHANGE

Public relations isn’t changing because of what happened to the world in the last 18 months.

The world has changed in so many ways and may never be the same.

That means we have to adapt the way we live, the way we work, the way we think.

Some things which once were normal may never return, although they said that about many things before, and along came retro.

PR, however, is still essentially much the same as it has always been.

A process of communicating with those we want to reach in order to build awareness of something, and make that something interesting and attractive.

What has changed, and what is constantly changing, is the world in which we live and practice PR.

The media landscape. The technology and communications channels available to us as PR professionals.

The events we use to promote brands, most having converted from live to virtual for the time being.

What hasn’t changed is our duty to tell our clients’ stories, exploring all platforms and possibilities to make sure those stories are heard and seen.

So we need to be more flexible, more creative, and more tenacious.

But PR still develops and controls the narrative.

That will not change.

TALKING BUSINESS – MAKE YOUR BRAND BETTER UNDERSTOOD

How confident are you that the way you talk about your brand is making the best impression on your audience?

So you have a fresh and modern website with regular updates, and are highly active on social media.

But do your digital platforms send out the right messages to tell people what kind of a company you are?

Does a quick glance at your home page inform visitors precisely what you do and what makes you stand out?

Or, like so many, does it leave them guessing and needing to navigate more of the site to find out – if they have the time?

Your social media channels regularly carry new posts on the products and services you offer.

But beyond that, what do they do to engage your followers and build brand loyalty and respect?

Does the way you communicate make you stand above your competitors by building a more powerful identity?

Are you using the right combination of content and language to build empathy and affinity with your brand?

Take time to analyse and answer each of the questions.

If you need help to do that, let me know.

Let’s work together to deliver big all round improvements and make your brand better understood.

LIGHT UP YOUR BRAND WITH EFFECTIVE PR

When was the last time your brand attracted a global broadcaster introducing you to an audience of around 279 million people?

Opportunities like that don’t happen every day, but a consistent and effective PR programme can dramatically increase your chances of earned media coverage on a local, regional and international scale.

A London-based BBC World Service journalist was doing online research into how Dubai real estate firms were working to attract Chinese investors.

She found online coverage of a story I’d released on a client looking to form a new partnership in Beijing which had immediate local and regional pick-up.

And within a few days, a BBC camera crew was filming an interview with the client at a new residential development in Dubai.

The result of a single news release, distribution to the right people, and extensive media relations efforts was UAE, GCC and international exposure in more than 40 languages.

Plus the added impact of the story being delivered to the client’s thousands of social media followers and website visitors.

Showcasing the brand to investors, home owners and developers.

Talk to someone who knows how to tell your story, and make your brand stand out.

KEEP IT SIMPLE TO GET YOUR MESSAGE ACROSS

If the PR advice you’re getting today sounds complicated, don’t allow this to be justified by the unprecedented circumstances we’re all facing.

While business, and life, has changed in so many ways and may never be the same, the basics of effective communications remain largely unchanged, and therefore should not be difficult to follow.

Simple is best for your brand, regardless of the product, service or experience it represents, and the audience you need to reach.

In a nutshell, PR means using all available communications channels and platforms to get your message across.

Some will be more effective and demand the bulk of your time, and in many cases that may mean ramping up your social media activity to reach the new and hungrier active users created by Covid-19.

Don’t, however, ignore traditional media, and risk losing whatever part of your audience still keep themselves in tune with what’s happening by following print and digital editions.

Right now, there has to be special consideration for the way your audience has been impacted, how the way people go about their lives has changed.

So your message may need adapting, modifying, given a new slant, a different tone.

As always, be honest, keep it straightforward, don’t promise what you can’t deliver, and avoid trying to cram in too much information, and risk losing your audience.

Keep this in mind whichever communications channels you use to position your brand.

The same for any live or virtual events offering good opportunities to get in front of those you want to reach.

TELL YOUR STORY TO BE A WINNER

Whichever kind of business you run, if you’ve survived months of unprecedented turbulence, you have a new story to tell.

It will be a story that makes you stand out, something that every business needs in order to be a winner.

Across four decades in the UAE and Middle East, I’ve crafted stories to help clients of all shapes and sizes get noticed.

Like the one about the Dubai event which made its way into the record books last weekend as the first of its kind to run on solar power.

So what have you done that has been different, a bit special, even remarkable?

If you need help with that, get in touch now.

Ask yourself, how has the coronavirus emergency changed your business, your industry, and how have you adapted to get through?

What have you done to ensure that your best standards have been maintained?

How much innovation have you introduced to overcome the new problems and obstacles you’ve faced?

Who are the people who have done most to negotiate all this?

While the media landscape is constantly changing, there are still many print, online and broadcast platforms for your story.

If it isn’t enough to make headlines in someone else’s space, use your own to get the job done.

Your website, your social media platforms, and those of the people making up your business, are all effective story-telling channels.

Contact me now for help to achieve your goals.

Tony Lewis

DO YOU CALL IN PR TOO LATE?

Where does PR start? The question is more relevant than ever as decision makers look for answers to keep businesses afloat.

Why are PR advisors often kept on the outside until key decisions have been taken that impact personnel, customers and other stakeholders, ultimately deciding an organisation’s fate?

In the case of the PR consultant, as opposed to the internal communications manager, this post hoc approach can mean a waste of so much valuable perspective.

That given by a fresh set of eyes viewing the problems being faced from another direction; seeing the consequences of actions before they’re taken in terms of the what they’ll say about those who took them.

Keeping your PR consultant on the bench is wastefully dismissive of their value in having a finger on the pulse of what’s happening externally.

It is a matter of trust? In most cases possibly, and PR advisors need to demonstrate that they can bring in a lot more than their communications skills if they’re to win a place in the starting line-up.

ACT NOW TO CASH IN ON UAE-ISRAEL OPPORTUNITY

Initial estimates say that the normalisation of ties between the UAE and Israel could be worth up to $550 million in business deals. But who cashes in?

The answer will have much to do with whoever is prepared to invest, starting right now, in building awareness of their brand in the Israeli market.

As with any other occasion when companies look to make themselves stand out, the money they spend on public relations must be seen as an investment.

When you invest, you expect good returns, but if you wait too long the best investment opportunities can pass you by.

If you expect great returns overnight, you’ll inevitably be disappointed. Investment, and public relations, don’t normally work like that.

For any UAE-based company with realistic ambitions to do business with Israel, now, and not next month, is the time to strike.

A senior communications professional with a major UAE brand tells me of enormous interest from Israel since the signing of the Abraham Accord, backed by amazing enthusiasm and goodwill.

Meanwhile, my new PR partners in Tel Aviv, one of Israel’s leading communications firms, advise me that there is huge excitement on their side from consumers, and businesses, who want to see, hear and touch what the UAE has to offer.

They’ll be with me in Dubai next week for a series of meetings to explain how specialist PR support can build a bridge for companies between the UAE and Israel.

Get in touch if you’d like to be part of the discussions.

RULE, BRITANNIA AND LEAVE MY MILK ALONE

Somewhere out there are a group of scientists who should be among the many currently looking for new jobs. Jobs which give them something useful to do.

They’re the ones who keep telling us that most of the things we enjoy eating, drinking or doing most are bad for us, probably fatal.

Like drinking milk, something I’ve been doing all my life, and will continue to do so until the day I die. Which, according to some scientists, will be a lot sooner if I don’t cut out the milk.

Because it can lead to heart disease, or bring on cancer. And there’s more. Apparently, milk production is harmful to the planet and causes animal suffering 

By drinking a glass of milk per day (I like it cold) I add 229 kg to my annual greenhouse gas emissions every year. This is equivalent (don’t you love how they come up with stuff like this) to driving a petrol car 941 kms.

And my milk consumption also uses 45,733 litres of water! Equal to 703 showers lasting 8 minutes.

Forgetting the fact that milk is actually rich in calcium and vitamins, I drink it because I love the taste, the way it quenches my thirst, and gives me energy.

My gratitude to the BBC for the video on its website’s ‘Reel’ section: ‘The surprising truth about drinking milk’.

Showing quite clearly that some of the scientists, like the people who want to ban Land of Hope and Glory and Rule, Britannia from the Last Night of the Proms, should be out of work.